Auxiliary Bishop Daniel Flores of Detroit will lead border-area diocese; given high marks for openess and for expanding Hispanic ministries in Michigan.

Published 5:14 pm, Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Bishop Daniel Flores, 48, who has been serving as an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Detroit, will be installed as Brownsville bishop Feb. 2.

Bishop Daniel Flores, 48, who has been serving as an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Detroit, will be installed as Brownsville bishop Feb. 2.

New bishop for Valley appointed

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SAN JUAN - Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday named the son of a South Texas construction worker as the sixth bishop of the Diocese of Brownsville.

Bishop Daniel Flores, 48, who has been serving as an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Detroit, will be installed as Brownsville bishop Feb. 2. He will replace Bishop Raymundo Peña, who is at the mandatory retirement age of 75.

Peña presented him to hundreds of priests, nuns, deacons, reporters and local faithful during media conferences at the Immaculate Conception Cathedral in Brownsville and the Basilica of Our Lady of San Juan del Valle in San Juan.

Once installed, Flores will oversee a diocese of more than 800,000 Catholics, many of them Spanish-speaking immigrants who live below the poverty level.

Flores used his introduction to stress his love for and knowledge of the Texas border region as a place of unique challenges to local Catholics as well as the global church.

"The border bears the marks of having a particular destiny, a mission at the service of human development and cultural exchange," he said. "The Lord calls us to give testimony that the encounter between distinct cultures does not necessarily imply a clash, nor does it imply that one has to lose his cultural identity upon entering a new situation."

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Flores switched readily between English and Spanish, saying he felt honored by the church and God and hopeful that his service could help bring youths to the faith and Catholics in general back to Sunday Mass.

His appointment to one of the most heavily Hispanic regions of the U.S. comes as Washington prepares for intense debate after President Barack Obama's pledge to pursue comprehensive immigration reform.

The Catholic Church has become a key background player in the debate, with its doctrine that migration to escape poverty and persecution is a human right. Flores said he was united with the nation's other bishops on that theme and that he could relate firsthand the impact of current law, while encouraging the faithful to pray for their elected representatives.

"Reform for immigration is long overdue," he said. "It is required for the dignity of the human person. ... As Christians, we have a responsibility to speak about what the principles are."

Flores was born in Palacios, in Matagorda County on the Gulf Coast. He was baptized in Zapata and spent much of his youth traveling as his father sought work, living for various times in Luling, La.; Meridian, Miss.; McAllen and Zapata.

"The first thought that came to mind was, 'When will I be able to tell my mother?'" he said of the appointment, later quipping, "You'll never hear me complain of the heat."

He became a bishop of the Archdiocese of Detroit in 2006, the youngest U.S. bishop at the time, at 45.

Those who know him in the Detroit area described a man who was accessible to people despite a hectic schedule. He is believed to be the only Hispanic bishop in Michigan and the first Hispanic bishop in the Archdiocese of Detroit, and he has done much in his short tenure there to expand ministries for its estimated 250,000 Hispanic Catholics, they said.

"All of us have come to love him, and I know that he loves us," Detroit Archbishop Allen Vigneron said in a statement. "We are very sad to lose him, but we understand that his being sent to Brownsville is God's will."

As director of the archdiocese's Hispanic Affairs office, he established the first conferences for Hispanic men and women and the first celebration of the Virgin of Guadalupe on an archdiocesan level.

"He is a beloved person both in the Hispanic community and in other communities," said Fernando Perales-Hernandez, coordinator of the office.

"He's known as a very humble person and very accessible. He's a very open person, someone you can talk to about anything."

He already has fans in the Valley, including Sister Therese Ridge, who knew him during her work in Corpus Christi.

"He's very much a brother to us," she said. "The grapevine went wild this morning."